


Dear Bucky

by emilyevanston



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, I'm so so sorry, M/M, also get rekt, like seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-23 21:07:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10727265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilyevanston/pseuds/emilyevanston
Summary: After Bucky goes into Cryo at the end of Civil War, Steve writes him this letter.





	Dear Bucky

**Dear Bucky,**

I know why you chose to go into cryo again.  I know you didn’t make the decision lightly.  That it must have torn you up to have to go under again.  I know you were worried about what the Soldier was capable of.  That you were worried that people were going to use him again.  That if they did, you’d lose a little more of the man you were.

I also know it isn’t just that.  I know you had a hard time living with the things they’d made you do.  That they’d done to you.  I sometimes try and imagine what that would have been like.   Living with that level of torture.  Being made to kill people.  Innocent people. Doing that with your own hands, again and again against your will.  I try and imagine and I can’t.  It’s too much and my mind shuts down.

I _know_ all this is true, but I still wish you had chosen differently.  That you had chosen me.

I wonder if that last moment was like.  Did you feel the ice as it froze your blood solid?  Did it hurt?  Was that moment when your lungs freeze painful when you realized you couldn’t take a breath in any more?  Did it remind you when they froze you again and again between missions?  Were you scared?  Or was it a relief?  Did you just feel peace?

I remember when I froze.  I’d wanted that crash to kill me.  I told Peggy I had no choice.  Of course I had a choice.  I could have landed that plane.  I didn’t want to.  I couldn’t do it any more.  I couldn’t keep on going.  I had completed my mission and you weren’t going to be there when I got home.  So I crashed.   I didn’t die though.  Not right away.  It was so cold.  At first it hurt and I lay down and let it.  I let myself feel all the pain that you must have felt when you fell from the train.   After a while the pain left and I just felt content.  I think it must have been what it feels like when people take drugs.  Not that I’d ever be able to find out first hand.  It was like I was floating off.  I was still cold, but I didn’t care and I knew… I knew I was going to see you again.  I guess I wasn’t wrong about that bit.  It just didn’t happen like I expected.

I froze slowly though.  That’s not what happened to you.  Does the sudden freezing of your blood like that only have the pain part?  Or is it over so quickly you don’t even notice?  You seemed happy.  I guess that’s something.

That first time you died, did you feel a lot of pain or did the cold keep it at bay too?  Were you scared like I am now?  I think about you alone, bleeding out.  Being sure you were going to die a lot.  If I could change anything it would be that I had fallen that day.  Maybe if it had been me I could have fought them off.   At the very least it would have been me that suffered under Hydra and not you.   _I_ was the one that dragged you into a fight you had no place being.   _I_  should have been the one to pay for that mistake.  Not you.

When you died that first time I was devastated.  I’m not even sure devastated was the right word for what I felt.  It was so much more than that.  I wanted to have gone over with you but I was too scared.  I tried to get drunk when we got back to London.  I went to that bar we had gone to together when you agreed to fight at my side.  It had been bombed out and was just a shell.  I found as much alcohol as I could and I drank it all.  It did nothing.  I just sat there drinking and drinking and nothing changed.

Peggy found me.  She told me that you made the choice to join me.  To protect me like you always have.  That I needed to allow you the dignity of that choice.  So I allowed you the dignity of the choice you made to go under again.  Knowing how hard it must have been for you.  I let you make it and I pretended for your sake that I was okay.  I am _not_ okay.  I am alone.  The people who I thought were my friends have all left me, except the few who have nowhere else to go and all I want is to have you awake again.

I just want to be selfish again.  Like I was back in the war when I asked you to fight beside me.  Why did I ask you to do that?  You could have gone home.  You could have started a family.  Instead I asked you, and of course you said yes.  You always protected me.  That was what you did.  What you’ve always done.  Even when you weren’t fully yourself and you had the Soldier telling you you had to kill me, you pulled me from the water because you couldn’t let him.  Why couldn’t I just have let you live your own life?

Don’t answer that, I know why.

I keep going over the chain of events that led to where we are right now.  You in cryo and me here alone writing this letter that I’m never going to show you.  I try and figure out a way where we could have ended up okay.

I couldn’t have convinced you not to go to war.  You were drafted. But even if you weren’t you would have gone no matter what I said.

If I hadn’t insisted on fighting too.  Of becoming Captain America.  Well you would have just become the soldier sooner and I would have died of one of my many conditions and you might still be the Soldier right now.  You might never have gotten Bucky back at all.

If I hadn’t asked you to fight with me?  Then you would have gone home to Brooklyn.  Found yourself a gal, and married her. You’d have had kids and died before I thawed and I’d still not have you here.

So maybe this was the only way?  Maybe this had to happen?  Jesus Christ, listen to me Buck.  I just said you had to live a life of torture just so I could keep you.  How selfish am I?

But here’s the thing Bucky.  I have something I need to tell you, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to. Even if you were awake right now, I don’t think I could get up the courage to say it.

I’m in love with you.  I’m in love with you and I have been since I was old enough to even have those feelings for someone.  It was always you.

I’ve loved other people.  I loved Peggy and maybe if I hadn’t tried to kill myself we could have had the life you were supposed to have.  I would have been happy.  I could have lived a good life with you as my neighbor, and Peggy as my wife. If you got married too and I could see you were happy.  Our kids could have grown up together.  Maybe they might have fallen in love too.  Back then that was how I saw it playing out.  We couldn’t have been together.  Not that way.  Even if you did feel that way about me, which I’m sure you don’t, that’s not how it was back then.  So I could have done it, because I did love her and all I really wanted was you to be happy, Buck.

We didn’t get that.  Instead we got this mess.  And I wish… I wish before you had gone under that I could have brought myself to say it.  Even if I had just hugged you and said, ‘I love you, Buck.  You’re my best friend and I don’t want you to go under.  Because I’ll miss you and I’m scared to be alone.’  But I was scared that if I hugged you and I said those words I wouldn’t have been able to let you go.  I wouldn’t have been able to keep it together at all.

Do you hate me for that?  After all these years of torture and not having control of your own body you best friend couldn’t even hug you and tell you you were going to be okay?  I’m so sorry, Buck.  I hope you can forgive me for that.

And here’s the thing.  I know things are different now.  I know two guys can be together that way and most people don’t care.  They can even get married now.  Did you know that?  I’d like to see you in a tux beside me, holding my hands.  Maybe you’d have a white rose in your lapel.  And powder blue tie because when you wear blue it shows up in your eyes.

But you don’t love me like that.  I know that.  I know.  So I didn’t say anything to save myself the pain, and so you didn’t have to feel guilty about going.  You didn’t have to feel like you had to stay and protect me again.

I still wish that that’s what you’d chosen to do.  I need you.  I need you to protect me.  I keep making stupid rash decisions.  I keep putting myself in fights where I don’t belong.  I throw myself off buildings and out of planes.  I need you to protect me, pal.  I have no idea what I’m doing even though everyone seems to look at me like I do.  I pretend to be this leader and they all follow me, but what am I doing?  I’ve ended up alone and on the run from the law.  Where do I go from here?  I need someone to tell me what I’m supposed to do.

I did nearly tell you once.  Do you remember?  We’d gone on one of you double dates to Coney Island like you always insisted.  The dame you’d asked to be my date was ignoring me and only had eyes for you.  Exactly how it always turned out.   You were showing off to them.  Playing skee ball and just getting high score after high score and you looked over to me alone, and wishing I was anywhere but there for another round of you getting both the girls.  You stopped playing and you came over to me and said that I could have the prize if I wanted.  I don’t know why you did that.  You were always about impressing those girls.  I nearly said it then, because you made me feel more important than them for that brief moment, and then I remembered where we were and I brushed you off and I called you a jerk.

After that, when I wanted to tell you I loved you, that’s what I said instead.  I sometimes wonder if you’d worked that out.  I guess not though, because you kept insisting on double dates.

I do love you though.  Even if I did never say it.  I love you deeper and more fully than I think you will ever know.  Than ever I’d care to admit to your face.  I wish you had chosen me.  I wish I had been selfish again and made you choose me.

But I didn’t.

So I’m writing this letter to tell you all the things I can’t.  I’ll probably burn it when I’m done.  But I promise you this, pal.  I will find a way to get the Soldier out of your head.  I’ll find a way that you can come to terms with the things they did to you and the things they made you do.  I will make this okay again because I can’t imagine another 70 years without you beside me.  I can’t do it.  I can’t be without you.

Till the end of the line, Buck.

_\- Steve_


End file.
